"No one would try to carry great heavy boxes over the rock barrier," he said. "They'd just take the gold out in sacks."
"The barrier may be a rock-fall," said Fiona. "The treasure may all have been cleared out long ago."
And then there came to the Urchin the realization of the fact that he had lost his gun. He turned very red.
"It's a shame," he said angrily, "an awful shame. It was given to me, and someone has taken it. Can't you think where it could be, Fiona? I'd go _anywhere_ to find it."
Whatever Fiona may have been going to say, her words tailed off into sudden silence. For from beyond the cave wall, as it seemed, sounded again the footsteps which they had heard before; and this time they knew that there was no cave there, and that It was walking through solid rock as if along a road. There was no question this time of any concealment or pretence; both frankly turned tail and made for the rock barrier. Halfway there the Urchin tripped and fell heavily on his head. Fiona put the lamp down and helped him up, dizzy and shaking.
"Can you go on, Urchin?" she said. "If not, I'll try and carry you."
The Urchin looked back into the blackness, unrelieved by any ray of the lamp, which faced the other way. The footsteps were steadily drawing nearer, neither hasting nor staying. What the Urchin may have thought he saw Fiona could not guess; he gave one shriek, slid out of her grasp, and bolted for the rock barrier as fast as his trembling feet would carry him.
For one moment Fiona all but followed him. Then it suddenly came to her that she was responsible for the boy's safety. She never knew afterwards how she managed to do what she did; but she turned, and with the courage of utter desperation--the courage which enables the hen partridge to face the sparrow hawk--stood at bay, swinging up the heavy lamp to see and face whatever should come.
And into the circle of lamplight quietly walked the figure of the old hawker.
The revulsion of feeling was too much for Fiona. She sprang forward and caught the old man's hand and clung to it.
"Oh," she said, "I'm so glad it's you. We heard the footsteps and we were so frightened." The relief of it all was overwhelming; she was almost crying, and went on saying anything, hardly knowing what she said, just for the mere human companionableness of it. "How did you come here? I suppose you came over with Angus in his boat. Of course you would. Then there must be another way into the cave after all, and we couldn't find it."